


get real

by verity



Series: tween wolf [39]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Family Feels, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Magic Revealed, Mental Health Issues, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Show me your claws again," Lydia says. "I want to see them."</p>
            </blockquote>





	get real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_rocket_frost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_rocket_frost/gifts).



> content notes: some brief allusions to attempted suicide, grief over minor character death.
> 
> Thanks to Ashe always for help with characterization stuff.
> 
> This is update 2 of 2 for today. :D

"A demon," Lydia says. "So those are—real."

Scott glances over at Deaton and Stiles, who are squabbling and gesturing at a file cabinet. "I guess so. I mean—Stiles is the one who knows anything."

The demon looked like fog, dense and dark and purposeful, pouring off Allison's shoulders like wings. Lydia's never seen anything like it before. She didn't know she—could. But that's what Scott said last night, that she was probably like Daphne, that there was something in their blood that made them immune to “stuff."

"Show me your claws again," Lydia says. "I want to see them."

Scott raises his eyebrows, but he obliges, holding out one hand and shifting: his nails elongate, curling inward. Lydia takes his hand in hers, turns it so she can see his roughened palm. It's strange to see claws on Scott, who's so gentle and puppy-like that Deaton makes him work all those pet adoption events at the mall. Scott is the nicest person Lydia knows, but for some reason, she likes him anyway.

"Nobody is going to die," Stiles says, raising his voice. "There has to be another solution."

"Allison is an excellent host," Deaton says calmly. He talks exactly the same way when Lydia brings Prada in for a checkup. "Young, strong, mobile. It would take a great deal to persuade the demon to give her up. Do you wish to risk your friends further by waiting?"

Scott's head snaps up; his claws retract. "I'm not killing anyone."

"Laura—" Deaton says.

"Laura's not killing anyone else, either," Scott says. "I'll—I'll challenge her. Before that happens."

"Dude," Stiles says, wide-eyed. "No, that's—we've had this discussion, that is not going to work, that is just going to end in everybody dead, and I mean _everybody_."

"Who did Laura kill?" Lydia asks. It’s hard to believe that they’re talking about all of this seriously, about Allison, whose towel is hanging in Lydia’s bathroom, about Laura, who’s a deputy.

Deaton huffs and turns toward the filing cabinet; Scott and Stiles stare at her, like they've somehow forgotten she's in the room. "She—" Stiles says, pauses. "Her uncle was—he bit Scott and Daphne, did Scott tell you that?—and he was—dangerous? So she kind of, um, killed him, yeah."

"In self-defense?" Lydia says, arching an eyebrow.

Stiles and Scott exchange a long look. "Not exactly," Scott says.

"Sort of," Stiles says; Scott steps on his foot.

—

Lydia and Kelly Hale were in the same class from second through fourth grade, sat together whenever they could, clung close on every field trip. Sometimes she went over to Kelly's after school and they painted each other's nails (Kelly's nose wrinkling at the smell) and played MASH and watched TV. Laura braided Lydia's hair once at a slumber party, put it into a high crown around her head.

After the fire, there was a grief counselor at school that they made her talk to, her and everyone who knew Kelly. Lydia didn't want to talk about anything. What was there to say? There was a Kelly-shaped hole in Lydia's life, in the fifth grade class they were supposed to have shared, in the yearbook that's collecting dust somewhere in Lydia's closet. She came home from school every day to find Daphne lying on the living room floor, music blaring from the stereo, eyes closed; Lydia kicked at her shoulder until Daphne yelled, "I'm fine, _go away_ ," as if it was Lydia's fault that she needed to check.

Slowly, Daphne disappeared from Lydia's life in other ways, driving around with Derek Hale every day and smoking out by the pool house, moving across the country for college. She'll buy Lydia all the alcohol Lydia wants, but she'll never tell her the origin of her bruises or the truth about the animal that bit her in the woods by the Hale house all those years ago, about the night that Lydia found her in bed, blood seeping through the bandage on her throat and thought helplessly: _she did it, she did it, she’s dead_.

—

"This might help you." Deaton places a slim manila folder in Stiles's hands. "It's all I have, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, I kind of don't believe that," Stiles says with a full-body sigh. "Whatever."

"I would read the book I gave you again," Deaton says, giving Stiles a gentle shove toward the door. "Perhaps you need to look… more broadly, for a solution."

"Thanks, Dr. Deaton," Scott says as Lydia stands up. "I'll be back at five to close up, right?"

Lydia follows Stiles out into the hall, leaving Scott and Deaton to sort out their scheduling issues. "I want to see it." She puts her hand on Stiles's arm. "I want—"

"Sure," Stiles says, just like that. "Let's—you want to look at them in the car?"

The folder is full of loose, yellowed sheets from a poorly-aligned dot matrix printer that was low on ink; the borders have been sloppily torn off on most of them. There are supplementary images, grainy, pixelated bitmaps that Lydia can barely make out. "I thought—I don't know why, I guess, I thought it would be more—"

"—bloody calligraphy on crackling vellum?" Stiles says. "Yeah, not so much. Deaton has some of those, but they smell, and most of them are in German."

"I read German," Lydia says. Not well, but she took a class online last year. It's enough to skim through most of the mathematics journals that interest her.

Stiles gives her a quick glance that's hard to read. "Most of mine are in Russian."

"Not so good with the Cyrillic alphabet," she says. "But I can learn."

"Look, Lydia—" and that's it, she can feel the rage already twisting her stomach again, waiting for the inevitable _no_ — "You can't, you can't do your thing where you act like you're stupid, I don't have time for that, okay?" Stiles says, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "Nobody cares about that. I don't—Scott's always fucking humoring you, it drives me nuts. If you want to help—you have to cut it out."

This is—not how Lydia thought this conversation was going to go. "You want me to—? Really?"

"Stop fishing for compliments," Stiles says, groaning. "This is is exactly what I'm talking about. You're the smartest person I know. Get real."

"I am," Lydia says, back on safer ground. "I just—you never asked, before."

Stiles gives her a completely false smile and says nothing.

"Of course I'll help," she says, returning his smile, smoothing her skirt. "In fact, I don't know how you've managed without me."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
